1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a positioning apparatus, a positioning method, and a storage medium for obtaining positional information of each position on a movement path.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, there exists a positioning apparatus which obtains positional information of each position on a movement path using both a positioning function utilizing a Global Positioning System (GPS) and a positioning function using an autonomous navigation sensor.
Hereinafter, a position measurement using the GPS is called a GPS measurement, and a position measurement using the autonomous navigation sensor is called an autonomous navigation position measurement.
In the autonomous navigation position measurement, positional information related to a measured position is calculated in such a way that an autonomous navigation sensor such as an acceleration sensor and a direction sensor continuously measures a moving vector which represents a relative moving direction and a moving amount, and in such a way that information of the moving vector is added to positional information of a preset reference position.
The autonomous navigation position measurement has such a property that, if the positioning operation is repeatedly executed, positioning errors are accumulated.
Therefore, when carrying out the autonomous navigation position measurement with a positioning apparatus, it is necessary to obtain relatively precise positional information by the GPS measurement, for example and to reset the obtained positional information as a new reference position before the positioning errors are increased.
As a conventional technique relating to the invention of the present application, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H06-094471 discloses a configuration that performs both a positioning operation by means of an autonomous navigation processing unit and a positioning operation by means of the GPS.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H06-094471 discloses a configuration where, if a distance between a measurement result obtained by the autonomous navigation processing unit and a measurement result obtained by the GPS is equal to or more than a predetermined value, a coordinate of a starting position of the autonomous navigation processing unit is corrected based on the measurement result obtained by the GPS.